Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo by Sandra Cisneros

Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo Reviews

• 
  Sarah-Hope

  Did I enjoy reading Sandra Cisneros' Martita, I Remember You? Yes.
  
  Is it a book I'll read again and again, like Loose Woman or The House on Mango Street? No.
  
  Cisneros knows how to tell a story, to pull readers along on a journey, offering enough scenery and commentary that they never feel bored, never feel that they've wasted a moment of reading time. But, there are the books you read once and the books you read again and again. For me, Martita, I Remember You was a one-read experience.
  
  Martita is an epistolary novella. The central character, Carina (known to the particular friends whose letters she's reading as Puffina) has come across a small bundle of letters from two women she spent time with in Paris years ago, with whom she's lost touch. All three were young then, hoping to be writers, artists, to make or do something that would make them stand out in some way. They were dreaming big. Clearly, those dreams didn't pan out, but I think part of the point here is that smaller things, just keeping going, doing right by loved ones and one's self, is enough. Small isn't the opposite of big. Small is a kind of big that it takes time and maturity to recognize.
  
  I was charmed by this group of young friends, but never really felt I'd gotten to know them. As a reader, I had to fill in parts of their stories myself to get the sort of resonance I was looking for. So, in a way, I felt like I was simultaneously reading Martita while also writing parts of it.
  
  I very much appreciate the format of this novella, with text provided both in English and Spanish. It gives readers with some competence in both languages an opportunity to see how language can affect the feel of a piece of writing, what kinds of ideas come across most clearly in which language.
  
  Martita, I Remember You is definitely worth seeking out and reading. The pleasure may be brief, but it's pleasure nonetheless.
  
  I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
• 
  Linda

  3.5
  I don't call myself a writer anymore,but I console myself with reading. Before, it was all about how I looked to others. Now, I just want to look good to myself. That's just as important isn't it? If not more.
  
  Sandra Cisneros, the Mexican American poet and novelist's recent novella, Martita, I Remember You is a nostalgic reminder of youthful dreams. Corina, thirtysomething and married with two children, finds letters from the two female friends she met in Paris while trying to live their dreams. The letters draw her back in time as she reflects on her younger self and the person she has become. Cisneros deftly combines epistolary and prose forms in this finely crafted novella. It is a short and beautifully written reflection on friendship and change.
• 
  Jenny (Reading Envy)

  "As a young woman, Corina leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in the cafés of Paris...."
  
  Instead she confronts an expensive city she can't afford and she has to figure out how to stay there. One thing is to find two dear friends, and some of the memories come through in these letters.
  
  This is in English and in Spanish, so as an audiobook it's 3.25 hours total but perhaps only if you speak both languages!
• 
  Kimiya

  «زیستن به مدت کوتاهی در کتاب، داستان، شعر. آدم می‌ماند شعر چگونه اینهمه مطلب را به زیبایی تمام بیان می‌کند. ریچارد خسته‌تر از آن بود که به این‌جور مسائل دقت کند و‌ من تنها شاهد آن شادمانی و اندوه بودم. عادت کرده‌ام به تنهایی از آن شادمانی‌ها لذت ببرم.»
• 
  Saba

  با خودم فکر میکنم اگه منم پام به پاریس برسه، همچنان همونم که هستم.
  اما هنوز هم پاریس شهر رویا‌های منه.
  
  «توی قلبم سوراخی است که آن طرفش پیداست، انگار یکی سیگاری برداشته و کرده تو و از آن ور بیرون آمده. چیزی که روزی قد سر سوزنی بوده حالا آن‌قدر جا باز کرده که انگشت از آن رد می‌شود.»
  
  «منتظرم چیزی بزرگتر از حد من در زندگی اتفاق بیفتد. تمام عمرم منتظر بوده‌ام.»
• 
  Raven

  “I should’ve answered your letter. Some things that happened to me were wonderful, and some parts were only good because they passed. When things were bad, I kept thinking better was just around the corner, and by the time I had the energy to raise my head and take a look at my life, years and years had passed. Forgive me. I didn’t want to admit to myself this was all I had to tell you, this life of mine. At the time, it didn’t seem enough, not what I expected, not what I had ordered, not what I wanted to share. Do you understand?”

  
  My heart is so warm after reading Martita, I Remember You. This novella is equal parts everything that lights me up when it comes to literature: it’s a novella (once again, I’m here for a good time, not for a long time), it’s an exploration of friendships that are transformative and life-sustaining, it's an exploration of memory and personal myth, and! though it’s prose, it reads like poetry.
  
  This is a novella in three parts. First, Corina reminisces on her time as a young woman in Paris. She remembers waiting in line with other immigrants to use the payphone. She remembers being cold and broke. She remembers feeling like an interloper because she didn’t speak French very well … because she was a writer who didn’t write. But mostly she remembers her friends Martita and Paola, who loved her.
  
  There’s one scene in particular where Corina tells Martita that she’s “… never made love.” And Martita replies:
  

  “Never? Not once?
  
  Ay, Puffina, it’s what religion is supposed to be. Like when the sun shines through the church window’s prettiest colored glass and you know God isn’t inside that building, he’s inside you.
  
  …
  
  And it’s as if your body isn’t an anchor or an iron bell anymore, it’s only your spirit, wide as a sky, as if a thousand sparrows opened their wings inside your heart, and oh, it’s lovely, lovely, Puffina. As if you’ll never feel alone again.”

  
  The tenderness! The way that Cisneros makes it clear that to love someone, is to gently inform them about the things that you know they must know. I read those lines, and I will never stop thinking about them!
  
  This book is so beautiful! Aside from friendship, it’s about growing up and growing apart from people you loved. It’s about how the love always persists. It’s about how you rarely become the person you planned on becoming in your youth. And how despite the disappointment of that, there is still so much joy to be found in wherever you’ve wound up. It’s about how the love that was cultivated in friendships that only lasted for a season is, in fact, perennial. And all in only fifty-two pages! I have to share this one last quote:
  

  “Sometimes I think of you at odd moments, Marta. When I’m teaching the youngest how to brush her own hair or painting my toes on the back porch and painting my girls’ toes, too. I suspect it must be that way for you, too. Which is when we both must be thinking of the other, tugging and yanking like the tides.”

  
  Sandra Cisneros never misses. All of the stars, all of the satellites, all of the neon signs, and anything else that shines.
• 
  Boogi Lu

  -برام مملو از غربت بود این کتاب، حس سفر کردن و تلاش برای موندن و حس دردناک اینکه آخرش که نمی‌تونی بمونی. پر از حس مهاجرت و یه کوه غم که حالا باید چی کار کنی.
  -سبک نوشتاری این نوولا یه جوری هستش که یه عالمه کلمه اسپانیولی و ایتالیایی و فرانسوی قاتی متن می کنه انگار می‌خواد بگه بعضی حرف‌ها رو نمیشه ترجمه کرد و فقط تو زبان مادر می‌تونه باشن، شاید تمام معنیشون رو نشه کامل فهمید ولی بهتر می‌شه جانِ کلمه رو حس کرد.
  -تجربه کوتاه خوبی بود.
  ۶ از ۱۰ *
• 
  Elizabeth Moore

  What a wonderful little book by the beloved Sandra Cisneros. More quietly reflective than magnificent, it's a joy to settle back into her style that I've come to know and love. From the perspective of Puffina to her long lost friend Martita, this book--told in letters and responses to letters--is about two (sometimes three, but mostly two) friends who lived together during their few but formative years trying to make it in Paris. From the bittersweet recollections of her past self to the acceptance of her current self who did not turn out the way she dreamed, we get a peek into Puffina's brief but astonishingly complete reflection on life. Tender and thoughtfully written, this short book can be read and savored in an afternoon, which I do recommend.
  
  "This morning re-reading your letters and drinking my coffee in the kitchen and sitting under a little square of sunlight that comes through the lace curtain in a graceful pattern, just sitting here, and looking at the walls and not thinking anything special. Just to be able to sit, nice and warm in this lovely square of sunlight, and to not have to go to work today, and no one calling me, and the house very quiet for once, my Richard and our lovely girls all safe and snug at the library. And far away the sound of the expressway whooshing like the ocean, and to realize suddenly . . . happiness.
  
  Sometimes when I look at trees in winter, how their bare branches give off a violet light. Or the scent of a baguette. Or the Moroccan design on an antique doorknob. Or how a window opens out instead of up. They remind me of those days I lived beside you, Martita. Though I don’t tell anyone, I think it. Without regret. We don’t write one another anymore, but I still think of you, Marta. Un recuerdo. A remembrance, a souvenir, a memory. Te recuerdo, Martita, I remember you."
• 
  sophia

  Not my favorite Cisneros book, but still beautiful. My favorite part are the letters from Paola—the phrasing is so very Italian. “It is a long time I don’t have news from you”—è tanto tempo che non ho notizie da te. I think maybe I’ll understand it more when I’m older.
• 
  Ray

  Of course a book by Cisneros would be published this year and only by accident did I find out about it--and of course, I would get it immediately.
  
  This is a book I feel like I really needed to read at this point in my life. While I do not truly have creative aspirations, I can see the pain and turmoil that those who do may endure while pursuing these dreams, how they may be dashed or even abandoned simply due to the fact of reality: money, stability, circumstances you don't expect.
  
  I have always been a person who dreamt of adulthood as a time when I would feel better, I would have my life together, I would be able to do what I wanted and enjoy my life after struggling so much as a teenager. Unfortunately, none of that happened. I got a job, and paradoxically I am slowly and quickly learning that none of that can be so. There are demands. You can't always do or get what you want. You may idealize life, you may know there are more beautiful and meaningful things in the world than the drudgery and corporatism of work, but you have to deal with it nonetheless.
  
  Corina had a dream to be a writer, to be like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, in Paris and soaking up all that life had to offer to creative types, typing away and publishing manuscript after manuscript. She instead encountered men who took advantage of her, poverty, insecurity, the fact that you just don't know what the fuck you're supposed to do when you move to a completely different country and you have to do what you can to survive, even when you have so many goals that you may never even accomplish because of, yes, reality.
  
  Yet she met Martita, and Paola, though Martita was truly who touched her. Corina ends up in a life that is stable, nothing like one she imagined, with few opportunities to enjoy herself, to read, to soak up the happiness of life. She even ruminates how it can be that rich people can have so much more time to do what they like, and it's something that I feel myself grow bitterer and bitterer about every day. Yet it's a life--she has a family, she has a job, she has a home.
  
  Yet she hasn't forgotten Martita. Cisneros, in most of her works, excels at capturing how human relationships transcend the cruelties, disappointments, and difficulties of life. While the structure of the book can sometimes be confusing, and left me wanting to read more about what happened to Corina in her own words, I can see why she decided to write it this way.
  
  The book is really very short. It is also translated in Spanish, which I have yet to read. It's a bit disappointing in a way because Cisneros has not really written something that we might consider ambitious. While I do appreciate it, I would prefer to see a more fully-fleshed work instead of what could be seen as a lengthy short story. At the same time, like I said, I think it's a work I needed to read at this point in my life, to further cement that life cannot always be want we want it to be, but we must take it as it is nonetheless, and enjoy the few moments we can. It may have even depressed me further but I think all in all, it mirrors what I've been feeling in the past month so it's something of a comfort as well. I always enjoy Cisneros's writing so it's a treat in between all the stress I've been going through.
• 
  Joy

  2.5 stars
  Very artistic, but also fairly uninteresting. This one seems to suffer from the same thing that haunts extremely autobiographical works: there is not enough connection for an outsider.
  
  The biggest flaw for me is the epistolary structure. It is disjointed and just so trendy that I’ve had enough, regardless of how effective Cisneros may be with it. She has doubled down on minimalism and insinuation to a spot just before poetry with each entry. I would actually be happier with a book of poems. Instead, I am left with no narrative and no fully developed poetry.
  
  This one will be a hit with trendy fans of creative nonfiction, as it echoes some of those patterns. Personally, I’m glad it was short. Thank you to Sandra Cisneros, Vintage Books, and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Keely

  When Corina rediscovers a stash of her old letters, it brings back vivid memories of Marta and Paola--the two young women she befriended, partied with, and crashed with, during a long-ago trip to Paris. Told through a mix of letters and impressionistic memories of incidents and conversations, Martita, I Remember You offers a snapshot of a charmed moment in life.
  
  This very short novella contains flashes of Cisneros's signature poetic, emotion-laden imagery. However, for the most part, it seemed to merely skim the surface of a bigger, deeper story. Martita, I Remember You feels sketchy, undeveloped. I think it could have been stronger as a longer, more fleshed-out novel.
• 
  Hanieh

  داستان از جایی شروع می‌شود که کورینا جعبه‌ای قدیمی را بعد از سال‌ها خاک خوردن در گوشه‌ی انباری، باز می‌کند و با دیدن نامه‌ای، خاطرات گذشته برایش تازه می‌شود. کورینا، پائولا و مارتیتا سه دوست و سه شخصیت اصلی داستان که روزگاری، هر یک به‌انگیزه‌ای و امید و آرزویی، به پاریس رفته بودند و همانجا باهم آشنا شدند. حال که سال‌ها از آن روزها گذشته و آن‌ها از هم جدا شده و هر یک به‌دنبال زندگی و سرنوشت خودرفته اند، دیدن نامه‌ها آغاز مرور خاطرات و بازگشت به روزهای زندگی در پاریس برای کورینا است.
  داستان شور و ‌شوق‌های کمرنگ‌شده و آرزوهای برباد رفته در خلال روزمرگی و دوستی‌هایی که پیوند بینشان گسسته اما یادشان باقی مانده و با اندک جرقه‌ای دوباره زنده می‌شوند. مثل جایی از کتاب که کورینا می‌گوید: "مارتیتا، همه‌ی این‌ها مرا به یاد روزهایی می‌اندازد که کنار تو بودم. هرچند به کسی بروز نمی‌دهم، به آن فکر می‌کنم. ناراحت هم نیستم. ابایی هم ندارم. مارتا درست است که دیگر با هم مکاتبه نداریم، اما هنوز به تو فکر می‌کنم. مارتیتا، من از یادت نمی‌کاهم. مرا از یاد نبر..."
• 
  Flybyreader

  “Tener a la persona a quien amas viva y sana, viviendo en el planeta al mismo tiempo que tú, pero eligiendo no estar contigo. Eso es peor que la muerte, creo yo.”
  
  Cisneros does it again, creating a powerful short novel written in epistolary form, ripping my heart apart. She has a unique way with words, unveiling a myriad of emotions using simplest of words. This magnetic bilingual short story is about three girls trying to survive in Paris full of hopes and dreams for the future:
  
  “I’m waiting for something to happen. Something always happens in Paris. Paris, with its chandeliers and palaces. Paris, of champagne and moon. I’m waiting for something bigger than my life.”
  
  With letters exchanged between the three, we read about this transition period, their beautiful friendship, their growth and change. Cisnero’s eloquence and poignant style creates wonders and I wished it were longer. The book consists of two parts each in a different language. I really enjoyed reading the story in both languages, comparing the small nuances. Definitely recommended!
  
  (I received an advanced readers copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)
• 
  Morgan

  I am sorry but when I was reading this I just found I did not care about the story too much, the writing style is not for me. I found myself a little lost and confused during it and it did not hook me. I really wanted to read the other half in Spanish but I struggled enough with the English part so I only read that. However I have heard great things about Cisneros other works so please do not let this discourage you! I would still love to read "House on Mango" street! This particular work was just not for me.
• 
  Cristina

  I don't remember House on Mango Street, but I have respect for this Chicana author who forged her way back in the 80s and 90s when I was first reading women of color and discovering feminism in a context of authors like Cisneros. I watched her chat with the also amazing Joy Harjo last night at the first Santa Fe Literary Festival and loved her even more. This tiny book, about 50 pages in English, and 50 in Spanish translation that I hope I'll try to read, is a snapshot of a character not unlike Cisneros who went to Europe (France mainly) to "become a writer". She struggles to find other writers, but finds street artists and friends from South America and Italy who she shares her daily adventures with. It's nostalgic and sweet and resonated with me because of the my travels and the various characters I met while abroad and searching for more.
• 
  Aura

  Doubly delightful short story in English and in Spanish. When I was in high school taking French class, I had a dream that I would move to France and become fluent in the beautiful French language. French always came easy to me because it resembles Spanish so much and I love it so much. This short story is a lovely snippet in time when friends live in Paris just out of high school. The friendship, the hopes and the dreams. Oh my dream passed me by! Lovely lovely short read that reminded me of why we should not let dreams just pass us by.
• 
  Selena

  This was a lovely read. It gave me wanderlust for Europe and made me want to read and write in a cute Parisian cafe. It really enjoyed the fact it had both languages, many Spanish is "not so good-looking" ( *if you know, you know*) and it was good practice because this book is not as complex as 'The House of the Spirits' or '100 years of solitude.'
• 
  Lynn

  Letters between two characters who met in Paris. The woman from Michigan moved to Paris to become a writer and spent her money. Paolo the man, did the same thing but their bond is firm after returning to their hum drum lives.
• 
  Julie

  I really liked this book. It reminds me of the friends I made when I studied in Spain and how although we don’t talk as much as we used too they are locked in my fondest memories forever and ever <3
• 
  Inda

  This was as short read but still enjoyed the story. Cisneros has a way of speaking to me as a fellow writer that many others writers don't. This story of retrieving a long lost friend from some formative years is no exception. I do wish it was longer and there was more filling in lost years and an epilogue. The story works as is, but I just wanted more.
• 
  michelle gd

  4.5 stars <3 so lovely. I love reading anything Sandra Cisneros, she writes about love and friendship and heartbreak and culture in a way no one else i’ve ever read does. This one tugged at my heart, she’s just like me.
• 
  Joseph

  A beautiful encapsulation of memory. The writing here is meditative, bringing an elder’s maturity and resolution to youthful memories. Cisneros employs conventions from both epistolary novels and poetry, creating a language for the past that somehow matches the language of the present in its short bursts and succinct brevity. The language soars, but never any deeper than the skin’s surface. “The you-you dissolving, a lozenge on the tongue. So it isn���t you and he or that and this anymore. It’s all the things you ever knew and all the things you didn’t, and no words for any of it, and no need for words anyways.” This book contains both an English and Spanish version, which compliments the bilingual experience of the characters and complicates certain metaphors/visual language. There are also gorgeous reflections on sadness that were reminiscent of Qiu Miaojin’s writing.
  
  Thanks to Netgalley and Vintage for the copy!
• 
  Audrey Ashbrook

  Martita, I Remember You is a short, partially epistolary novel about the pull of friendship between three women: Corina, Poala and Martita. 
  
  I loved the setting and the forged friendship between the young women as they explore Paris while trying to pursue their dreams. I enjoyed reading the letters exchanged between them because their voices were unique and fun and really stood out here. 
  
  I wish this was a full length novel! I'm interested to read more Sandra Cisneros in the future. 
• 
  Barbara Schultz

  
  Corina leaves her family in Chicago and travels to Paris as it has been her dream to become a writer. However, things don’t work quite to plan.
  She meets Martita and Paola and they are best friends but have lost touch with each.
  A forgotten letter is found in a closet while she is using a scraper and blowtorch to strip a hundred and six years of built up varnish off a dining room built-in hutch. She stops to reliving those wonderful friendship memories; which seem as if they are once again talking to each
  
  This style of telling a story through letters was once the way to tell a story. However, is a style I usually don’t read but it was more enjoyable than I expected.
  
  Want to thank NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishers for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
  Publishing Release Date scheduled for September 7, 2021
  
  
• 
  Judy Goldman

  I read this novel, then turned to page one and read the whole thing again. That tells you everything you need to know. This is a dazzling, emotional read. Highly, highly recommend.
• 
  Lauren

  This is a lovely, sparse book, almost poetry but in prose format. It's about a woman who used to be called Puffina reminiscing on her time spent living on pennies in Paris with two other young women, Argentinian Marta and Italian Paola. She finds a letter that Marta ("Martita," fondly) wrote her years after they left Paris, ending with the line, "Don't forget me."
  
  Puffina, now the less-fun Corina, back in her hometown of Chicago, has never forgotten Marta or Paola in the 10 or 15 years since receiving that letter. She remembers all of the things they did together in Paris, stealing from a department store, eating baguettes, sitting on a bench at the Promenade des Anglais, showering with a bucket in Marta's disgusting apartment.
  
  This is a very quick read, but written so beautifully and gracefully that the words will stay with you for a while. The second half of the book is a Spanish translation of the first half, perfect for someone trying to read more literary Spanish. I highly recommend you pick this up and take it to a coffee shop, preferably one where you can enjoy a pastry and a cafe au lait.
  
  Thank you to Knopf Doubleday for the ARC via Netgalley!
• 
  Jan Priddy

  Mixed feelings, especially since this really is a short story, not a real book. Despite being a longtime fan, it truly reads like a mishmash of memoir and mighta' coulda' shoulda' regarding a pre-grad school Paris stay and friends left behind. Beautiful wordplay typical of her work. I am grateful for the Spanish translation.
  
  I suspect most people will love it, even though I can't.
  
  Someone asked about a title of a book the main character reads, repeated several times in italics: Mithridates, King of Pontus. Likely the title refers to the libretto of Mozart's opera by that name.
  
  Mithridates is a historical person famous for ambition and ruthlessness. It is also the title of a 17th century play and several 18th century dramas including the opera by Mozart: "Mitridate, re di Ponto" or in English Mithridates, King of Pontus in which Mithridates ends by committing suicide to avoid capture and defeat.
  
  Perhaps a metaphor for Corina who chooses to abandon ambition and instead she lives not the grand life she'd envisioned, but a longer and more comfortable one.
• 
  Meli

  4.5 estrellas. Temas de la amistad femenina, la mayoría de edad, viajar en Francia como latinoamericana, navegacion y comprensión en la adolescencia de la agresión sexual como una parte elemental de la vida femenina, el aborto, y los lazos que las mujeres forman entre sí en sus experiencias formativas de la niñez. La historia bilingüe funcionó muy bien. Me encanto.
  
  Themes of female friendship, coming of age, travel in France as a Latinoamericana, coming to terms in adolescence with sexual assault as an elemental part of existence, abortion (off-page), and the enduring bonds that women form with each other in their formative experiences of girlhood. The bilingual story worked so well. I loved this.